Party hunting regs- clarification

[iowavf]

Do away with party hunting isn't going to stop those who are trespassing. Party hunting has nothing to do with making them trespass! Same people will more than likely trespass if they go late ML, just who they are.
Also seems to be less hunters versus ten years ago, or atleast around the parts I hunt and talking to other people who hunt shotgun season. I don't get the argument if ten hunters have license and all hunt together. All ten shoot a deer, tags are filled and everybody's fine with that, but say two of the hunters didn't get a shot and a couple other hunters in the group did, and filled their tags. Everyone in the group is happy, but other hunters are complaining because they don't like party hunting.

 

[booneriverbucks]

This is what I hear a lot of from people who own land or just live in the country even. "We never have problems with hunters, besides the two gun seasons" and so those seasons get associated with the bad apples. I have that problem on a handful of parcels I have permission on. I'll mention it to the landowner or show trail cam pics and he kinda just shrugs, chalks it up to shit people and he doesn't want to make a stink, and we move on. I think that negative perception is a big problem.

Then you add that management wise, it's just not necessary at the current herd levels. Especially in western IA. Once upon a time, it was a way for DNR to have a ton of deer killed quickly and efficiently when the state NEEDED to kill 200k++ deer for carrying capacity and social acceptance. Now only 100k deer are killed per year, populations are still struggling to rebound from disease, and people are still saying that they aren't seeing any deer and that party hunters are trespassing to kill indiscriminately... bye bye

Lots of stupid people out there. Gun hunter’s violations are much more visible and in such a small time period that it sticks out more. That doesn’t help the perception. Maybe bow season and late muzzleloader aren’t necessary anymore if the population is so bad.

 

[CottonwoodCanyon]

Lots of stupid people out there. Gun hunter’s violations are much more visible and in such a small time period that it sticks out more. That doesn’t help the perception. Maybe bow season and late muzzleloader aren’t necessary anymore if the population is so bad.

Totally agree on sentences 1-3, and not bashing gun hunters as a whole but we need to recognize the bad apples and call them out.

As for sentence 4- I think you missed the point. This isn't archery vs gun vs muzzleloader. My family does all 3. This is about party hunting, the history of why Iowa has it, and a discussion about it's future and relevancy in whitetail management.

 

[booneriverbucks]

Totally agree on sentences 1-3, and not bashing gun hunters as a whole but we need to recognize the bad apples and call them out.

As for sentence 4- I think you missed the point. This isn't archery vs gun vs muzzleloader. My family does all 3. This is about party hunting, the history of why Iowa has it, and a discussion about it's future and relevancy in whitetail management.

I didn’t miss the point. Not necessarily you but in general everyone points to changing gun hunting regs first when trying to solve our current issues. Other than the addition of using straight walls nothing has really changed in gun hunting for over 40 years. There was way way more parting hunting and deer drives back when our deer herd was at it’s peak and there was more access then too. So what has happened ?

 

[CottonwoodCanyon]

I totally hear you there. I don't have a magic bullet (pun intended) and there is something to be said that people are trying to hit the "easy" button with regulations that don't really do much in the long run. But I don't see tradition as the sole reason to save party hunting being enough. "That's the way we've always done things" is the kiss-of-death phrase as culture moves through time.

 

[booneriverbucks]

I totally hear you there. I don't have a magic bullet (pun intended) and there is something to be said that people are trying to hit the "easy" button with regulations that don't really do much in the long run. But I don't see tradition as the sole reason to save party hunting being enough. "That's the way we've always done things" is the kiss-of-death phrase as culture moves through time.

Totally agree there. Again, I really don’t mean to disagree with you personally but I am just amazed by the amount of people that are totally supportive of getting rid of something they’ve never done or have no intentions of doing but once somebody brings up making changes to something they enjoy all hell breaks loose.